On 11/13/2018 8:49 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
Not AFAIK, but calling someone or something extremely stupid or foolish is
almost always a terrible idea in a professional discussion (or pretty much
any discussion that you want to be civil) - especially if it can be
interpreted as calling the person stupid or foolish. That's just throwing
insults around. If an idea or decision is bad, then it should be shown as to
why it's bad, and if it is indeed a terrible idea, then the arguments
themselves should make that obvious without needing to throw insults around.
It's not always easy to avoid calling ideas stupid when you get emotional
about something, but the stronger the language used, the more likely it is
that you're going to get a strong emotional response out of the other person
rather than a logical, reasoned discussion that can come to a useful
conclusion rather than a flame war, and asinine is a pretty strong word.
It's the sort of word that's going to tend to get people mad and insulted
rather than help with a logical argument in any way - which is why Walter
called in unprofessional.
Exactly right.
It's not that I'm angry about this (I'm not), I've been around too long to get
annoyed at this sort of thing. I'm pointing out that using such tactics will
produce the following reactions:
1. professionals (i.e. people that matter) will ignore you
2. the recipient will get angry with you, will go out of his way to refuse to
acknowledge your position, and will entrench himself deeper in his position
3. discourage professionals (i.e. people that matter) from participating in the
forums
4. you'll find yourself interacting solely with other egg-throwers,
accomplishing nothing
None of these are a desirable result.
